ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s top administrative court temporarily confirmed on Friday that Telecom Italia, (TLIT.MI), Vodafone (VOD.L), Wind and Fastweb (SCMN.S) should reimburse clients over their 28-day billing policy by the end of this year.

Vodafone and Wind had requested the court to suspend the payment, but the Council of State rejected the request. A final decision on the reimbursement will be taken by a separate court on Dec. 18.

Last week another court had annulled the fines the communications regulator had imposed on the phone operators over their new method of issuing monthly bills to customers.

The number of days that will have to be paid back to customers will be calculated from the end of June 2017 and will be transferred over one or more bills, the decision said.